


Brûlure

by ellymango



Category: Ballerina | Leap! (2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Burns, F/M, Headcanon, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Post-Fire, Repressed Feelings, Sharing a Bed, Sickfic, angsty snuggling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 03:38:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11820429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellymango/pseuds/ellymango
Summary: There was no pleasure to be gained from having to attend the weeping wounds of someone very dear to you, much less so when they were too miserable to accept any form of help. Mérante didn't exactly knowwhyhe kept coming back day after day to look after her...He just knew he had to.





	Brûlure

**Author's Note:**

> Well someone was gonna write something like this sooner or later. I imagine this is set at least a week or two after the theatre fire (which in my own headcanon, was a fairly catastrophic event with numerous deaths and injuries) and that they're in... maybe not a hospital room but some kind of bedroom.
> 
> I'm not sure myself please don't shoot me.
> 
> Also imh Mérante is the squeamiest girl's blouse out there like he would pass out over a papercut. I just think that's good to know before you start.
> 
> Also did I mention I'm terrible at titles

“What are you doing here?”

Mérante said nothing, and avoided eye contact to focus his attention on the raw wet burns lining Odette’s left forearm. They’d healed somewhat since his last encounter with them, which at least _implied_ that she’d been taking care of them herself... but that didn’t make them any less revolting, and he suppressed a dry heave as he changed the bandage.

“You’re making yourself ill.” Her eyes, though exhausted, were disapproving.

“And you’ll be even more ill if I don’t change them.” Which he knew she probably wouldn’t. Lord knew she couldn’t even look after herself when she was healthy, so he didn’t even want to think about how she’d treat herself in her current state. Cold, hungry, tired and covered from breast to thigh in a fierce spectrum of red burns, not to mention the fact she refused help from everyone but him, chances are she wouldn’t last long at all.

She winced, pushing herself upright, holding the sheet against her thickly bandaged chest. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable though.”

“Are you going to clean them?” 

She didn’t answer, and sombrely held her arm out to make it easier to wrap. “I’ll do the rest.” Mérante looked up. “My lower parts, I mean. I... I don’t want you to see that. Not again.”

“... I understand.” He’d had to tend to that area as well, of course. It had taken all his willpower to not be violently sick and all of hers to bare herself in such an intimate and humiliating situation, and both of them had been trembling by the end of it. Needless to say, neither of them wanted to relive that situation.

He finished with her arm, and she immediately tucked it under her breasts, out of her own sight. He knew she hated seeing herself like this; swathed in bandages discoloured with blood or pus or whatever nastiness the burns would weep. She hated it as much as seeing the burns themselves, raw and ugly, like a soggy bruise on a peach. It’s why she spent her days in bed, with her sheets pulled up as far as the bandages went. She didn’t want to look at herself.

“Are you cold?” It was a rhetorical question; he could see she was shivering. She side-eyed him, gently rubbing her upper arms subconsciously, and nodded. He pulled his jacket off his chair, gesturing at her to lean forward, and set it on her bare shoulders.

She pulled it around herself, a fleeting glimpse of a grateful smile touching her face. “Thank you.” 

“No problem.” 

They fell silent, awkward and unsure of if they should say anything to each other, or if they even had anything to say in the first place. They rarely could these days, oftentimes their conversations would turn to menial, general, and somewhat depressing chatter about how the other survivors were doing, whose funeral was the most recent, how the rebuilding of the theatre was going. Or about Odette’s injuries, the state of her future, whether she’d even be able to walk again once she healed. Those conversations never ended well.

Mérante took the silence to watch her face, lightly illuminated in the candle and moonlight. The burns had been unable to reach any higher than her shoulders, and had her body not been so damaged he would tell her she was lucky her beauty was still intact. Not that she would listen.

“You’re still cold?” 

“No.” But her shivering jaw told otherwise. “Why, are you? Do you want your coat back?” She slipped it off her shoulders, ready to hand it back.

“No, no, keep it. You need it more than I do.” She reluctantly wrapped it around herself. “You... do you have any shirts you could wear? It’s going to be getting cold soon.” 

“I’d rather be cold.” She shifted, taking the weight off her right thigh with a slight hiss. “I was told being warm would lead to infection.”

“And who told you that?”

“I... just heard it from someone.” She eased herself down, head tiredly lolling onto her right shoulder, which stayed tense and squared against the headboard. It wasn’t late at all, despite being so dark outside, yet she still slumped with exhaustion, her eyelids heavy with sleep. Mérante roused her, stroking the back of her head, careful not to tease any hairs out of her tight braid. 

“Am I keeping you awake?” 

A fleeting smile flickered on her face, and she leaned into his palm. “I’m just tired.” She was always tired. Even before the accident, he would notice her performance would slack due to her being perpetually exhausted. 

“Sleep then. You’ll heal faster.” 

“I can’t.” Before he could ask why, she cut him off. “My back. I can’t put pressure on it for too long.” 

“Ah.” He knew her front was significantly worse than her back, so it wasn’t as though she could sleep on her stomach either. “Is sitting upright less painful?”

“A little.” 

He fell into silent thought, brows knitting intensely. “I... have an idea.”

“Do tell.”

He shifted over onto her bed, slipping his arm around her shoulder as gently as he physically could, easing her closer. She immediately stiffened at his touch, eyes flying wide open and alert even in such a tender embrace. But she didn’t wriggle away.

“What... what are you doing?” 

“Try and sleep against me. It’ll relieve the pressure on your back.” Plus it meant he could keep a close eye on her for the night. And make sure she actually ate the next morning. Skipping meals was a bad habit she’d yet to shake. 

She seemed uncertain, yet cuddled in as best she could against his shoulder, draping her barely-injured right arm over his lap and slipping her left hand into his right. 

“If you want me to leave, just ask...”

“No, it’s... fine.” She yawned, her whole body drooping in fatigue as though all the troubles of the past few weeks had rushed up to her like a tidal wave. “I’m... so tired...”

“I know, I know.” He stroked her shoulder, resting his cheek in her silky dark hair. “Sleep now. I’ll stay with you.”

“Aren’t you busy?” 

“I’ll find the time.”

She fell quiet and pensive, as though she had a question she didn’t want to know the answer to. “Why... why do you keep coming back to me?”

It was a loaded question. One which Mérante himself didn’t even know how to answer. Not sincerely at least.

Eventually he sighed. “I... don’t know. I just do.”

“But why...?” She was falling asleep rapidly by now, unconsciously pressing herself into him for warmth, and with one last sleepy breath she fell limp, all the tension she’d been holding up finally dissipating. Mérante squeezed her hand.

_“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Say does anyone else fancy more of this because I kinda do. Also the idea of Odette with a long plait/braid is really pretty ahh
> 
> Yanno I'll probably end up posting it to my tumblr but if you're not gonna hang around for me there then I'll say it here: I don't personally hc that the fire was what crippled Odette and that her limp is caused by multiple issues that being burned on exacerbated...
> 
> But that's for another fic entirely :^D


End file.
